Fire Rider

Beryl Baigent is a poet; her published collections include Absorbing the
Dark, Hiraeth: In Search of Celtic Origins, Triptych: Virgins, Victims,
Votives, and Mystic Animals.

This collection of love poems (the author’s first) is divided into
five parts: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Transmutation.

In “Fire,” we are introduced to a woman who can rise from her own
ashes and take on the universe. In the strongest poem of the collection,
“Phoenix,” she travels from birth to rebirth, and from the cradle of
civilization to the present day, affirming, “I will rise.” In these
poems, Singer wants “all women” to be “mother Earth” and “all
men Johnny Appleseeds,” so they might come together “in a holy
cosmic fountain of the soul.”

“Air” begins in the “fog-filled” Grand Canyon, where the
persona is actively searching out physical love. “Breaking the night
barrier” is a cry against male–female inequality. “How long will
it take / for a ‘little girl’ / to mount the temple steps / ascend
the cryptic spire / and / fly?” There is a philosophical paradox in
this collection: the multifaced male protagonist and his lover are
“joyful” but at the same time “prisoners of the light.”

“Water” symbolizes the soul’s progress as it teaches one to
“flow” and drink from the “chalice of / Truth.” Water appears
also as tears, sexual fluids, “hungry tactile cells,” and a lover
whose “[f]rozen wings of passion” make him a “Man of Ice, Man of
Fire,” thus exemplifying the vulnerability and submissiveness of
woman.

“Earth” encourages one to “[e]xpand like a tree / skyward /
earthward” and adhere to the adage, “As below, so above.”
“Transmutation” occurs when one enters the circle and becomes an
integral part of the “music of the Spheres.” Transformation, for
this poet, is “maturity,” but her journey still includes a
companion, physical love, and youthful idealism.